From the Crikey grapevine, the latest tips and rumours …

A FU from this uni … Wowsers are hard at work at this uni, a tipster reveals.

“Staff at the new Federation University in Gippsland, in eastern Victoria, have been told NOT to refer to their workplace as FU.”

… while heads roll at Curtin. Speaking of matters tertiary, sounds like times are tough over in Western Australia.

“Ask Curtin Uni how many academic staff are being made redundant. Ask how many general staff have been let go recently even though the Deloittes review is incomplete. How much are they paying? Up to 15 million? How much of the money generated by teaching is being redirected toward research and how many teaching staff will be left after the ‘reshaping exercise’?”

OK, we’ll ask. We had a quick scout around but got so baffled at this blog post on the need for Curtin staff to “live our values” that we gave up.

Rudd highlights mini-me. Kevin Rudd has been going a little cray on the Twitter over the past week. Yesterday he seemed to be swearing (that word would never be allowed at Federation University!), while this is his latest contribution:

And they say all babies look like Winston Churchill. #babiesthatlooklikekevinrudd is clearly a hashtag to watch.

Greedy banks. We’re all used to banks gouging away, but this seems like a new one:

“The banks must be hurting over the ANZ ruling on unfair fees. Have just found that Westpac Visa is now charging me $2.50 cash advance fee for payment for Tattslotto tickets online. When queried they stated ‘It was because it was replacing cash’. When I suggested all Visa purchases are replacing cash she was stumped but did agree to refund the charges this time. I suspect it could be because (to my knowledge) no advice has been issued to cardholders. Perhaps the govt has secretly done a FOFA reform dump on bank charges as well.”

Anyone know more? Send us an email.

Christmas wash-up. Christmas might be 352 days away, but here’s one final leftover tip from a disgruntled Australia Post mole from the 2013 festive season:

“Grinch and Scrooge award to Ahmed Fahour, not even a cup of coffee or piece of cake for frontline workers over Xmas, guess he was too busy with his executive bonus.”

Mind you, if AP workers could stop leaving our Christmas presents in obvious places around letter boxes in busy areas, that would be a real help. Perhaps then you’d get a piece of Christmas cake?

One for the survivalists. A Crikey journo is looking into whatever happened to the climate-friendly lightbulb ban announced by Malcolm Turnbull in 2007. Some people in the US (which has imposed restrictions on some bulbs) are hoarding the old-school bulbs as a gesture of defiance against the nanny state. Have you heard any stories of Australians doing the same, and if so, how many bulbs have they stored away? By now, traditional incandescent bulbs are supposed to be not available in Australia. Has anyone seen some for sale recently? Email our intrepid lighting reporter here.

*Heard anything that might interest Crikey? Send your tips to boss@crikey.com.au or use our guaranteed anonymous form